Where did the name Automag come from?

[robertjuric]

Maybe this has already been answered, but I was just curious.

[Muzikman]

Originally posted by AGD
Most of you guys are too young to remember Dirty Harry but he was an icon in his day. He shot the well known 44 Automag in one of his movies. We got the name from him.

AGD

[robertjuric]

Hmmm, I remeber that movie, but I thought he just shot a .44 Magnum, I was just kind of wondering about the Auto. My dad who also loves Dirty Harry, said it was a .44 Magnum.

Not that Im argueing, if thats where they said they got the name, then aparently, thats where they got the name.

[Lee]

in the world of real guns, an automag is .22 magnum automatic.

[Muzikman]

There are .44 Automags...the movie Tom was refering to is Sudden Impact. He used a .44 Magnum Automag.

[robertjuric]

oh ok coool

[rx2]

I do believe that whilst it was called a .44 Magnum, the gun that was used in the movie was actually a model 57 .41 Magnum. The difference in appearance is slight, but as someone who owns several different Magnum handguns, it is a bit more noticeable when firing.

The Automag was used in Sudden Impact, as mentioned. It is referred to as the "Automag" when Harry is taking some target practice. It was a semi-automatic pistol, with an appearance much like a Luger, and yes, very similar to an AGD Automag, especially when equipped with a SS barrel.

[rx2]

Here is a pic from an old brochure.

There is a site, as well, at http://www.44automag.com/

[robertjuric]

oh ok cool.

[SIGSays]

tom kaye.. lol

[wobbles82]

Its got a nifty...."Palmer look" to it. Anyone else agree? Ive seen em before and figured thats the name for the marker and gun, wish I had one to bunker somebody....I mean err...shoot clay targets. Jp ;)

[Doc Nickel]

The "Auto Mag" was first developed in the mid to late sixties' and manufactured by a series of companies, such as AMT.

It was actually rather revolutionary at the time, being made almost entirely from stainless steel (which was a major innovation at the time- Smith & Wesson had only brought out the world's first production stainless steel firearm, the Model 66 .357, a few years before) but also being the first semiautomatic handgun to chamber a true Magnum-class round.

It operated on a short-recoil rotary-breech locking mechanism: when fired, both the barrel and the bolt recoiled rearward a fraction of an inch, then a cam engaged and rotated the bolt face (very much like the AR-16/M-16) which unlocked from the breech and continued to open to extract the fired case.

No one else would use this system on a handgun for another twenty years, until the Desert Eagle came out. (The DE being gas-operated, however.)

All told, it was, for it's time, as revolutionary as the advent of the true semiauto was for us paintballers. It literally changed the way people thought about handguns.

Sadly, the design was somewhat troublesome, which was a combination of ammo-related (having to do with things like case length, headspace, pressure levels, powder contamination, etc) and material. The first uses of stainless, for example, were plagued by "galling"- stainless rubbing on stainless tends to "cold weld" to itself and literally "smears" on a microscopic level. This is controlled today by using slightly-dissimilar alloys on the slide and frame, and altering the heat-treatment so one part is harder than the other.

Due to which, the design was never picked up by any of the major manufacturers, forcing the inventor to try and built it himself. Several variations exist, and there's thousands of them out there, but other than a few out together from parts over the years, they haven't been manufactured since the mid seventies.

The ones used in the Eastwood movie, for example, we made by the developer, from parts that had been in storage for years.

Personally, I always thought the name "Automag" came from the gun- considering AGD's was, in fact, semiautomatic and predominantly stainless steel.

Doc.

[einhander619]

Wow. Thanks for the metallurgy lesson, Doc!:)

[Duke Henry]

Originally posted by Muzikman
There are .44 Automags...the movie Tom was refering to is Sudden Impact. He used a .44 Magnum Automag.

Man, I just found another reason why our old team had a kick butt name!

I loved "Sudden Impact"!

[branman444]

...

[branman444]

....

[Star_Base_CGI]

auTOMag

[jaylock33]

Doc the fact that you know that much is incredible. Thanks for the knowledge.